Heart of Glass

by Dale, Lindy

  Nick was watching, Coops was looking dark and Justin had already disappeared, trying to avoid the awkwardness of knowing what was going to happen but not wanting to know.

  “I might have one more, if that’s okay?”

  “You can have whatever you want, Cara,” Nick whispered.

  Coops had made his way to the door, too. “Thanks for a great night Nick, there’s some money on the bar for the drinks.”

  Nick looked from the boys to me and went silently after them to lock up. “I’ll be in the shit if the hotel isn’t properly secured for the night,” he explained, as he went about bolting the doors and arming the security alarm. “Don’t go away.”

  As if!

  I stood at the bar, in the darkness, gulping on my wine. This was the worst thing I had ever done, well apart from trying to have sex with Coops and punching Ben in the nose. I had just picked up a man and was going to have wild unprotected sex with him. Could I do it? My eyes followed Nick’s shadow around the room. His sinewy body was bending and reaching, locking the doors and stacking the chairs. I could hear him humming Otis in the darkness. He was gorgeous. Could I do it? You bet your sweet Catholic rosary I could and I wasn’t going to regret a thing. I wasn’t going to think about Dean or Ben.

  Ben Who?

  See. I was forgetting him already.

  Nick walked towards me, the slow predatory prowl of a panther. I was almost dripping. “So…. you and the boyfriend are on a break?”

  He’d been listening after all. “Um, yeah. He doesn’t like my language choices. He finds them crass and unladylike or something.”

  Nick moved closer. “That’s odd. I’ve always found ‘fuck’ to be such an interesting and useful word. Like…..you looked so ‘fucking’ sexy when you were dancing before. I wanted to ‘fuck’ you right there on the dance floor.” His directness was far more enticing than Dean’s gentlemanly platitudes. It made me quiver.

  “It wasn’t the shoes that upset him, then?’ he asked acknowledging my ruby coloured feet.

  “Why the interest in my shoes?”

  “I saw them the minute you walked through the door. And I thought, any girl who has the guts to wear shoes like that has got to be worth knowing.” He slid towards me. “Seems I was right.”

  I took a deep breath. “I’d still like that drink.”

  “Come with me then, Cara,” he said directing me through the labyrinth of chairs and tables in the outer bar and turning the guiding lights off as we went.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Do you like champagne, Cara, Bella?” he questioned, as he led me towards a flight of stairs in the foyer. Even if I didn’t I wasn’t going to tell him. His voice was hypnotising me.

  “I love it, but where are we going?”

  “We’re going up to my flat, I live up there.” He pointed up the stairs. “Are you up for it?”

  I took another calming breath. He’d have me wetting myself before I got undressed at this rate. “I’m up for anything, as long as it’s nice.”

  “It’ll be the best you’ll ever have.”

  I looked at him intrigued and he laughed. “I meant the champagne. Are you coming, Cara

  Bella?”

  I couldn’t resist the tease that sat on the tip of my tongue. “I don’t know, Nick, it depends what you do to me.”

  ***

  The shrill of the alarm sounded inside my head, sending what was left of my brain bouncing from side to side and increasing the dull ache that already existed there. Lifting my head and pushing my left arm out from under the covers, I groped on the bedside table for the clock and pressed the ‘off’ switch. I placed my hand over my eyes and moaned. Oh God, oh God what had I done last night? I was never going to drink again, my head felt like a bowling ball that had been sent down the alley and into the gutter one too many times. Perhaps, if I lay completely still the thumping would stop. Rigid, I stared at the ceiling. Every centimetre of me ached in the most decadent way that sent a delicious shiver coursing up my spine. Maybe I wouldn’t give up drinking. Maybe I would just give up mixing my drinks.

  As I continued to stare at the ceiling, an image of Nick, the Love God, filled my aching head. The things that man could do…he was filthy, it was enough to make one blush, even as a memory. Nick, the Love God, had shown me what sex was all about. I grinned. I had never believed a man could be, so, well, dirty. God. Rolling over, I shoved my face into the pillow, willing the headache and the slight embarrassment at the images in my head to go away. It didn’t. All it did was put the whole evening on replay - over and over and over again like some sort of porn flick set on fast forward with a soundtrack of Hard To Handle in the background. Why, oh why did I drink so much? Was I becoming my own worst nightmare?

  Slowly, I slid my legs out of the bed and onto the carpet, sitting carefully upright, so as not to disturb the delicate balance of alcohol versus brain mass inside my head. The red shoes lay discarded on the carpet and a picture of Nick, with his perfect pecs and washboard abs, filling them with champagne and feeding it to me, was as clear in my mind as if I was still in his bed. I sniffed and screwed up my nose. What was that smell that was oozing from me, and oh, OOOHh – sticky…. My chest was covered in some vile substance that tasted vaguely like….honey and champagne. I had been a human honey sandwich.

  Nick had promised me the best champagne I’d ever had and there was no doubt in my mind that was what I’d got. My torso, bared and naked, had been the receptacle with a series of delicate licking and sucking maneuvers as the fizzy finale. But where had the honey come from? I had let him do that and now in the crucial moment of my fantasy-come-true, I couldn’t remember the intimate details. All I remembered was that when he had looked at me, with those eyes that drilled into me like Ben’s, I couldn’t refuse.

  Chapter 16

  JEALOUS GUY

  I’m just a jealous guy

  John Lennon

  Dean and I were sitting across the table from one another, at our little celebration dinner as he was calling it. Our break was over and he was so happy that, like a born again Christian, I had seen the error of my ways. I wasn’t so sure.

  “Do you like honey?” I asked, thinking that I might be able to coax him out of his permanent press mould and lure him to something slightly more risqué.

  “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  He frowned across the table. “Have you been reading Penthouse Forum again? You know those letters aren’t real. It’s very degrading to women.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, it was only a question.” I wished I’d never asked.

  Content that the interrogation was complete; Dean leant across and squeezed my hand. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said. In a way it was true. I’d missed the security he provided and the neurotic way he placed his shoes in the same spot near the door when he came to visit. I’d missed the way he filled the gap in the bed, the one that Ben was meant to have but never would. It was comforting, in an obsessive-compulsive way, to have him back.

  I gazed into his eyes with all the sincerity of a Hallmark card, thinking how perfect it would be if he were the same Dean with Nick’s sexual aptitude and Ben’s personality.

  “Are you listening to me?” he asked, noting my inattention with a snort.

  “Of course, sweetie.”

  “Do you want to go over to the pub?”

  “That’d be fun, there’s a band playing tonight.”

  “Is everything alright?” His face was a picture of paternal concern that made me want to puke. I should never have got back with him. I should’ve dumped him and put us both out of our misery but I couldn’t. Besides, he said I needed to think of others more. Wasn’t that what was doing?

  “Everything’s fine. I’ll go to the Ladies first. You go on ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  Dean nodded and wandered over to pay the bill.

  I escaped to the Ladies. Was he a complete fool? If he wasn’t, he
was bound to notice when he and Nick came face to face. For the last month I’d been a woman possessed, finding any opportunity to go the bar to see him. My barren pantry was now overflowing with honey and other delights that could be licked, sucked and slurped without using a spoon and I’d walked past the city’s one and only sex shop at least a dozen times.

  I caught up with Dean outside the door to the restaurant and grabbed hold of his hand. We walked in silence for a minute and then he did something so out of character, I was convinced he’d gone bonkers. He stopped right in the middle of the road; pulled me into his arms, and kissed me so hard I blinked in disbelief. Before I could ask, he came straight out and said what was on his mind. “Are you sleeping with someone else?”

  “No. Whatever would make you think that?” Nick and I didn’t sleep. We fucked.

  “I just wondered…you know… you spend a lot of time with the boys. I’ve seen the way Coops looks at you.”

  Well, wonders would never cease. The calm and sedate Dean was jealous. That was the reason for the massive pash.

  “Oh sweetie, Coops is my friend, that dirty dancing thing we do is a game. You’ve nothing to worry about there.”

  Nick, however, was another story.

  I kissed his cheek and we continued across the road. Poor Dean. He lived in some fantasyland where he could make me into the perfect girl. He had no idea at all.

  ***

  The crowd was still gathering when we arrived so it was easy to get a position at the bar. My boys were already there, having come straight from work and Uni and were drinking themselves into the zone where they began espousing love and peace to each other for long periods. Eating was not on the priority list until well after midnight. Dean pulled up two stools next to them and offered me one. I glanced surreptitiously up and down the length of the bar to see if Nick was there. It had been a week or so, since I’d seen him but already my heart was pumping fit to explode. Amazing, how I could find so much pleasure in the sight of a man I’d never had a full conversation with. Well, only in a horizontal position.

  It wasn’t long before Nick appeared to serve us, a brief smile of devilment crossing his face when he saw me sitting at the bar, protected by my army of men. He approached, his face showing no recognition of our evenings together but the tone of his voice was low and lurid.

  “Aah, the beautiful Bella Stone. Listened to any good soul music lately? I hear Otis does a mean ‘Hard to Handle.’”

  “Hi, Nick.”

  Nick thrust his hand across the bar towards Dean, “Hi, I’m Nick Edwards, bar manager. You must be Dean, the boyfriend.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “The usual, Cara?” Nick teased, with a wink.

  “Yes, please.”

  Nick sauntered away to fix the drinks, his butt looking sexy in his jeans, his body accentuated in his white t-shirt, and my jaw dropping and dribbling in awe. He was cool but Dean was confused.

  “You know him?”

  “Of course I do. We drink here all the time. We had drinks together the other week, didn’twe, boys?”

  “We did, although some of us drank considerably more than others,” chuckled Phil, as he began to relate past events in all their post-drunken dramatic fullness. His story sounded plausible enough though I was positive I hadn’t done a belly dance alone on the dance floor….had I?

  A bottle of chilled champagne and two glasses appeared in front of us.

  “This isn’t what I ordered.” Dean looked like a pensioner who’d just had his discount card taken away.

  I shrugged.

  “Nick sent it,” the barmaid said. “He said he knows it’s your favourite, Bella, and he hopes you enjoy it as much as you did last time.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I was drinking it the other week and I remarked how nice it was to Nick, that’s all.” I tried to look ignorant but I don’t think he believed me.

  “You call him Nick?”

  “Of course I do, what do you expect me to call him? Mr. Edwards?”

  A silence more deafening than the Divinyls concert we’d been to a while before fell over the group. Dean looked at me. He took a deep breath. He rearranged himself on his stool. He assumed his usual face, which was far too calm for my liking.

  “I think you’ve been having too much fun without me. From now on, I want to be part of it.” Then, he kissed my cheek and poured two glasses of champagne.

  I smiled weakly. Oh Goody!

  ***

  By the time midnight came, we were plastered.

  “I never realised your friends were so funny!” Dean said. It must have been a night for revelations. I’d never realised he was a two glass screamer either. It was rather amusing.

  All night I’d been in search of the perfect cocktail, ably assisted by Nick. I’d spent the entire evening drinking concoctions called ‘B52’s’ and ‘Fluffy Ducks’ and the massive amount of cream churning in my empty stomach was making me feel woozy.

  “Back in a tick,” I said, swaying as I stood up from my stool. My head was dizzy and the close proximity to Nick, who kept winking and whispering across the bar in Italian, was playing havoc with my befuddled brain. “Nature calls…”

  As I wobbled past the door to the cool room, it creaked open and an arm reached out and grabbed me by the elbow. I gasped.

  “You scared me,” I whispered, somewhat crossly, to the shadows.

  “You told me you like surprises.”

  “Not the sort where I age ten years.”

  Nick stepped out of the darkness. I could see his hazel eyes glinting through the darkness. “Did you enjoy your champagne, Cara?” he asked moving closer and wrapping me up like a

  python.

  I wriggled against him and tried to remain cool, a difficult task as the mere touch of his hand was causing major heart palpitations that went right down to my shoes.

  “Yes. Thank you, but not as much as the other bottle….Nick, I really shouldn’t be in here. Dean is suspicious.”

  Nick growled. His eyes devoured me. “Dean is a weasel. I don’t care what he thinks and neither should you. This is a far better way to spend the time.”

  “You think?”

  “I do. Now, turn around.”

  Standing with my back to him, I could feel his breath, hot against my neck. My skin tingled in anticipation. With one hand he reached around grabbing my breast. His free hand reached up under my skirt and was pulling my pants and stockings down. I wanted to be scared, annoyed even, but I wasn’t…. I was so excited I could hardly breathe.

  “Take them off,” he demanded.

  I was horrified, there was no foreplay, only demands, but already I could feel the adrenalin rushing thorough me as I removed my knickers without hesitation.

  “I’ve been dying for you all week,” he murmured. “Brace yourself against the wall.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see,” his voice faded away as his hands fell to my hips and he pulled my bottom towards him.

  Holding me tight, he unzipped himself and entered me from behind, pushing me against the wall. I gasped at his sheer audacity of his movement. It was glorious. Dean would never have the imagination to even consider such an act of pure supremacy.

  “Have you thought about me?” he whispered, as he thrust into me.

  I nodded, closing my eyes as, with each thrust, my excitement increased and he went deeper inside me. The feeling of him swallowing my being, consuming my soul in his pleasure was overwhelming.

  “Is this what you imagined when you thought about me? Did you want me to fuck you from behind?”

  “Oh, God, yes.”

  His rhythm was slow and powerful, driving me into oblivion.

  “Seeing you with him has been making me crazy. You’re a fucking tease, Bella. You come on to me without even knowing it. You’re too beautiful to waste on a jerk like Dean. You need a strong man.”

  “And that would be you, would it?”

>   He pushed again, harder still, as the intensity building between us. “Get rid of him and come back tonight after the bar closes, we have unfinished business. I want to be in you and on you. I want to fuck you senseless.”

  “Oh God, yes,” was all that I could say, as once again, he sent me into the throes of adulterous rapture.

  It was over as quickly as it began, but the smile stayed on both our lips as we went our respective ways.

  “That was a bad thing to do,” I said, as I adjusted my clothes.

  “Ah, but Cara you are a bad, bad girl, that’s why I need you so much.” He gave my bottom a playful slap and slipped through the cool room door and out into the bar. I pulled my knickers back to where they belonged and untwisted my stockings. It was going to be even harder to stay away from him now, knowing what he could do. I lusted after him.

  When I returned, Nick was standing at the other end of the bar, his broad shoulders to the throng, deliberately ignoring me and talking to a striking brunette while he changed the tape in the deck. His hazel eyes followed me as I took my seat and a grin curled his lips, those lips that had bit my shoulder only minutes before. Otis blared to life…

  The action spoke louder than a thousand words and Nick Edwards was definitely a man of action.

  “Can we go home, Dean? I don’t feel well.”

  “Are you ill? Your face is very flushed.” He raised his hand to feel my brow.

  “Mmm. Can we go?”

  I had hardly uttered the words before Dean was off his stool and leading me towards the door, his arm around my shoulder.

  As I turned to say goodbye I saw Nick, still standing at the other end of the bar, watching me.

  “Later?” he mouthed.

  All I did was nod.

  ***

  Exams were upon us in no time at all and the boys and I had gone to ground in a studying frenzy. I was working hard, reading until all hours and spending large amounts of time in the library, mostly trying to avoid a repeat performance with Nick. I knew I couldn’t go near him again. Besides, the guilt of cheating on Mr Pompous, as I had begun to call Dean, was beginning to play on my conscience, spreading like a huge festering pustule, wanting me to squeeze it to release the pressure. Staying away from Nick was the only cure.